


3x10 Coda - Malec & Parabatai

by SaadieStuff



Series: Missing Scenes & Codas [3]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: 3x10, Angst, Coda, Episode: s03e10 Erchomai, Gen, M/M, Malec, Mild Gore, Mild Smut, Parabatai, Parabatai Feels, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-20
Updated: 2018-05-20
Packaged: 2019-05-09 06:09:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,312
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14710574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SaadieStuff/pseuds/SaadieStuff
Summary: Coda to 3x10. | Scene 1: Magnus tends to Alec in the alley. | Scene 2: Alec finds Jace spiraling on the destroyed top-floor of Lilith's building. | Scene 3: Jace, Magnus, and Alec try to cope and get some sleep, while Alec feels torn. | [Each Scene (chapter) can be read independently - see chapter 1 for details.]Scene 1.Magnus starts with a slow pull on the arrow, but as Alec’s whimpers take the shape of his name Magnus has to stop.Scene 2.Simon's earlier words return in a swell, ringing in Jace's ears until they morph into his own voice. "I killed her. Clary’s dead."Scene 3.“You don’t have to choose,” Magnus whispers against Alec's neck, nuzzling into him.





	1. Guide

I’ve split this coda into 3 scenes (chapters) because of the varying subject matter. Each part can be read independently if you’d prefer to only read certain of them.

 

Chapter 2 - Scene 1 - Rated T

Magnus tends to Alec in the alley after Jace leaves. 

Warning: Slightly gory description of Alec’s injuries. 

 

Chapter 3 - Scene 2 - Rated M

Alec finds Jace spiraling on the destroyed top floor of Lilith's building.

Warning: Suicidal thoughts and near attempt.  


 

Chapter 4 - Scene 3 - Rated M

Jace, Magnus, and Alec try to cope and get some sleep. Alec feels torn.  


Warning: Mild Malec smut.  



	2. Scene 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This coda is split into 3 scenes (chapters) because of the varying subject matter. Each scene can be read independently. See chapter 1 for details.
> 
> Scene 1 - Rated T - Magnus tends to Alec in the alley after Jace leaves. | **Warning: **Slightly gory description of Alec’s injuries.****

Alec’s heavy breathing calms a little as the iratze starts to do its work, quieting the soft gurgle of blood pooling where it doesn’t belong.

Magnus strokes Alec's face, trying not to move him too much, whispering hushed reassurances as they wait for the rune to knit him back together.

Alec tries to ask about Magnus’s magic, hoping he heard wrong through the haze of pain, but Magnus only hushes him, tears rolling down his cheeks. _Not now._

"We'll fix it," Alec rasps out.

"First we need to fix you, alright?"

Alec nods painfully and reaches for the arrow in his chest. Magnus stops him.

_I’ve got it, love._

Magnus knows it’s going to kill him to hurt Alec like this. Knows it’s going to kill Alec if he doesn’t.

Alec nods again and squeezes his eyes shut. His hand goes to Magnus’s thigh, rubbing it encouragingly.

_It’s okay._

Magnus starts with a slow pull on the arrow, but as Alec’s whimpers take the shape of his name Magnus has to stop.

Arrowheads are not designed to travel backwards - it hurts more coming out than going in - and Alec’s whole body quivers with the effort of fighting the instinct to twist away.

_I’m sorry, I’m sorry, Alec. Just a little more._

Magnus gives the arrow one sharp tug this time. Alec yelps sharply - tears stream down his face, clenched in a grimace as blood pours out of the wound from the fresh damage of the arrow’s exit.

Alec struggles for another minute as the deep wound heals - his breathing erratic, panic continually threatening to set in.

To Magnus that minute seems to stretch the length of his _formerly_ immortal life. With his magic he could make all the pain go away in an instant. Now, he feels helpless. All he can do is keep touching Alec, keep talking to him.

_You're okay. I’m right here. Just focus on my voice._

And slowly but surely Alec’s chest mends.

His arm doesn’t.

Getting Alec’s jacket off is a chore, but they manage, and find bone protruding through skin.

Magnus generally avoids the gruesome, but he's seen worse - caused worse. And as long as he doesn’t think too hard about the fact that this arm is attached to _his Alexander_ , he can take charge.

"If you line it up..." Alec sounds panicky, but certain, “It will heal.”

But Magnus barely touches Alec’s arm before Alec is screaming.

“Stop! Stop! I just need-- Please-- Wait--”

Magnus doesn’t stop, much as it hurts to see Alec recoil from his touch, and Alec mercifully passes out, giving Magnus enough time to make bone meet bone again, skin meet skin.

"There you are," Magnus says with an apologetic smile as Alec comes to another minute later.

"Hey," Alec answers weakly.

"Are you okay?"

Alec sits up gingerly, testing his strength, flexing his arm. “Yeah.”

Magnus throws himself into Alec’s arms then, a squeezing tight embrace returned.

"Your magic…" Alec begins, when they’ve finally released one another. But the sentence goes unfinished as a loud explosion sounds above them.

They run out into the street - it’s littered with rubble and debris. Even from the ground it’s clear the top floor has been decimated.

_Oh god. Jace, Izzy, Clary, Luke, Simon._

Alec knows immediately that at least Jace is alive. Confused, but alive. It’s only now - with Jace’s emotions so clear in comparison - that Alec realizes how muted their bond had been since Jace was resurrected.

"Magnus, you need to go somewhere safe.” _That’s an order._

"I’m coming with you, Alec, you’re stuck with me.” _I was holding your bones in my hands._

"No.” _I don't know who I've lost in there but I'll be damned if I lose you too._

Suddenly, they’re shouting.

“If you think I’m letting you go alone--” _I’m covered in your blood._

“Magnus, please, we don’t have time.” _An iratze won’t heal you!_

“Alec--”

“You’ll be a distraction!” _You’re my weakness, now, more than ever._

It’s a gut punch, Alec knows it, but it’s efficient, and he’s won.


	3. Scene 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This coda is split into 3 scenes (chapters) because of the varying subject matter. Each scene can be read independently. See chapter 1 for details.
> 
> Scene 2 - Rated M - Alec finds Jace spiraling on the top of the destroyed building. | **WARNING: **Suicidal thoughts and near attempt.****

Simon comes half to his senses after a few minutes, his refrain - _I killed her, Clary’s dead -_ waning as he begins a frantic vamp-speed search through the rubble. Jace follows Simon's lead like a zombie, searching for any sign of fiery red hair.

Jace doesn’t notice as the rough pieces of concrete shrapnel and sheared steel shred his gloves and begin to chew up the skin beneath as he shifts the heavy debris about carelessly.

"Maybe, maybe she's down there... on the ground..." Simon says brokenly before he disappears in a blur to the stairwell, leaving Jace alone in the open air.

 _On the ground, like after I choked her and threw her_. Jace winces at the memory, feeling suddenly compelled to lurch toward the edge, to look down, but his eyes don't make it past his torn gloves and cut hands that now grip a jagged ledge.

Simon's earlier words return in a swell, ringing in Jace's ears until they morph into his own voice. _I killed her. Clary’s dead. I tried not to. I tried every time_. But he's failed again - the blood on his hands proof of it.

And he's back in Lilith’s cage.

Jace closes his eyes and makes a slow move to climb, expecting the usual devastating resistance - always blocked before he could end it. He'd tried so many times and he was denied the mercy over and over.

He's startled to find that this time his body goes as he wills it, over the ledge.

And it's a relief.

~~~

Simon collides with Alec in the stairwell. He utters a hurried explanation.

"Lilith attacked me and the mark it... I think Lilith is gone but... Clary... she... she's gone too... I--"

 _No._ Alec doesn't know what to say and Simon doesn't have time for it.

“Where’s Jace?” Alec asks instead, having felt Jace’s confusion at the explosion twist into pain and grief.

Simon points upwards, then speeds away down the stairs.

Alec feels a flash of unfair anger for Simon leaving Jace alone _on the top of a building_ , thinking Clary is dead.

 _Fuck_.

And Alec knows with certainty that his instincts are right when he feels Jace calm through their parabatai rune.

He charges up the stairs, three at time.

~~~

It’s ironic for Alec to be the one talking Jace off a ledge when it’s Alec who favours the fall, while Jace prefers the blade.

“Jace… please come down from there. Please come to me. Jace…”

Jace’s body freezes instinctively at the sound of his parabatai’s pleading voice; a different invisible force come to withhold any chance to be released of his pain.

“Lilith is gone. You’re not trapped anymore. This is all real,” Alec tries more calmly as he begins to approach.

_Then why does it still feel like torture?_

Alec can hardly understand Jace’s response, if he’s really saying anything at all, if it’s anything more than a whimper. 

“I know it hurts and it feels impossible but you’re going to get through this, I--” _I promise_. The word dies in Alec’s throat.

Alec wasn’t able to keep his last promise. And Lilith had made Jace do worse, just like he said she would.

Jace had to watch three praetors die by his hands, and like Imogen, deaths even more directly on his conscious than the loved ones of the mundanes he’d possessed. Deaths he could add to the long list of innocents he’s killed - the massacre with the Soul Sword still present as ever.

_I’m just a tool people use to kill._

Alec knows he could beg. He could assure Jace that they’ll find Clary and hope it’s not a lie. He could reason. _None of it was your fault. None of it was you._

He’s sure he would get through to Jace eventually. But as Jace wavers on the ledge, the adrenaline fading and his tired muscles starting to give way, Alec fears it won’t be fast enough. Because Alec knows this brand of guilt well - the kind where your body has been violated, used to do harm - it’s not easily pacified, and it never leaves, no forgiveness enough absolution.

But Alec _can_ fight fire with fire, burn it all down, end it quickly. So he raises his voice, hoping to pass off the tremor of terror it carries as anger instead.

“Magnus gave up his magic for you! _For me_. So I wouldn’t have to lose you -- lose a part of me. So I need you to try. I _need_ you to try. Don’t you dare let his sacrifice be for nothing, Jace. Don’t you dare.”

It’s cruel, and Alec hates himself for compounding Jace’s guilt. But it’s guilt on the other side of the scale.

And it works.

Jace makes a heaving noise as he breaks. It’s awful and raw. But he starts to shift his weight backwards, to safety.

“Jace, careful, let me help you,” Alec says gently as he begins to close the final distance between them.

Jace doesn’t want his help. He’s helped enough. Sacrificed enough.

Jace slips as he climbs down, if he’s honest he _lets_ himself, and falls backwards, the back of his head smashing against the floor violently.

He lets out a cry of pain. For a moment the physical agony overcomes the emotional anguish, and it’s a dangerous realization of possibility before the damn breaks and he’s sobbing. Sobbing so hard he can’t breathe.

Alec is already at Jace’s side, tracing his iratze. Alec expects protest, that he deserves it, because Alec knows that's what Jace is feeling. But Jace doesn't have the energy, has no breath for that, for anything.

~~~

There’s a deafening chorus of sirens at the base of the building by the time Alec manages to settle Jace in his arms.

Jace tentatively moves his hand over the hole in Alec's shirt where the arrow had pierced through. He slips his fingers inside cautiously before pressing them to Alec's healed skin.

“See, I’m fine. It’s fine.”

“But Magnus… I’m sorry, I--”

“Shh,” Alec soothes as he pulls Jace closer, to comfort them both, “You didn’t ask for Magnus to save you. That’s on me. That’s on me, okay? It’s not your fault. None of this is your fault,” he whispers against Jace’s neck.


	4. Scene 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This coda is split into 3 scenes (chapters) because of the varying subject matter. Each scene can be read independently. See chapter 1 for details.
> 
> Scene 3 - Rated M - Jace, Magnus, and Alec try to cope and get some sleep. Alec feels torn. | Warning: Mild Malec smut.

Jace crumples at first when Alec finally tries to coax him to get up - the lack of sleep of the past week all crashing down on him. Alec has to peel him off the floor, but once he’s up, and they’ve activated his strength and endurance runes, he’s steady.

The emergency crews have evacuated the area, so they have to meet up with the rest of the team blocks away.

They’ve found no sign of Clary. Simon is beside himself, convinced that he vapourized her along with Lilith.

But the rest of them know better. Lilith is a greater demon - she’s only been banished back to Edom. Maybe Clary with her. And with Jace’s information about Lilith’s plan to bind Clary with Johnathan, she may still be alive.

Simon latches on to this. “Magnus, can you do something? Check for traces? Take us to Edom?” he pleads.

“No… I’m sorry… I can’t… I--”

Jace has to turn away then, face breaking with renewed guilt.

Alec steps in to spare them both. “No, he can’t. He’s depleted from the burst of magic he used to free Jace.”

Magnus silently thanks him. He’s barely had time to register it himself - he’s not ready for everyone to know.

“Even if he could, we can’t just go barging into Edom after her. We need information, we need a plan, and all of you need rest,” Maryse says, her voice rising firmly above the protests of Simon, Jace, and Luke, “You’re no good to her dead.”

~~~

They take cabs to Magnus’s loft. They’re not sure if they’d be safe at the Institute, not knowing what Clary was forced to reveal, what the Clave now knows. Not that the Clave wouldn’t know to look for them at Magnus’s loft, but their options are limited.

Izzy and Maryse both worry over Jace but ultimately Izzy gravitates to comfort Simon, and Maryse to Luke, leaving Alec to care for his parabatai.

But the rest don’t know that Alec needs to care for his lover too.

Alec shuffles Jace and Magnus to Magnus’s bedroom as soon as he’s granted custody of them, arguing they need sleep more than anything.

“Magnus,” Jace begins as soon as the door closes behind them, “I don’t know what to say. I--”

“There’s nothing you need to say,” Magnus says, offering a small, sad, smile.

“No, there is. There’s so much. And it’s never going to be enough,” Jace says, voice cracking.

Magnus can only drop his gaze. Jace sniffs and looks helplessly at Alec for guidance.

The three of them make quite a trio. Alec, overwhelmed. Jace, broken. Magnus, wanting to crawl out of his own skin.

“I need a shower,” Magnus announces, and it’s true, because he’s still covered in Alec’s blood, but it’s also something routine that he does without magic. He hopes it will make him feel a little normal.

Alec grabs some wet cloths and dry towels to clean up himself and Jace before both change into pairs of Alec’s sweats and t-shirts. Somehow neither of them are nearly as bloody as Magnus. Jace is too tired to stand in the shower anyways.

Once settled under the sheets, Alec sitting next to him, stroking his hair, Jace falls asleep quickly - the whirring in his mind no match for the exhaustion of his body.

The shower eventually turns off, but Magnus doesn’t emerge from the bathroom.

After a few minutes Alec carefully extracts himself from Jace’s side and pads across the room to knock quietly on the bathroom door.

It swings open halfway.

Magnus is standing behind it, naked, hair dripping wet, leaning on the counter, staring into his own eyes in the mirror.

“I hated my mark for so long. And now it’s gone and I miss it,” he almost laughs.

Alec casts a nervous glance quickly back towards his sleeping parabatai before stepping inside and closing the door most of the way, cracked open just enough to listen for Jace.

“Magnus… what does this mean?”

Magnus turns to face Alec and pulls their bodies together in one fluid movement, letting his hands slip up under Alec’s t-shirt just a fraction on each side. It’s not meant as anything - Magnus just wants to feel a warmth that’s been missing since he sent his final blast of magic into the Owl. But Alec shivers involuntarily at the touch, and Magnus realizes he still has some magic in his fingertips.

Magnus crashes his mouth into Alec’s, pinning him firmly against the wall behind, one hand sliding further up Alec’s shirt, the other pulling on the drawstring of his sweats.

Alec is surprised at first, but wants it too, longs for the comfort it will bring, but their conversation isn’t finished.

“Mm-- Mag-- Magnus-- wait--” Alec whispers between kisses.

And Magnus backs off, fast. Too fast - like he’s been rejected - revealing how vulnerable he feels.

“Hey, hey, come here,” Alec says impossibly softly, reaching for Magnus, “I didn’t mean… I just… If you aren’t ready to talk about it that’s okay. But you don’t need to distract me like _this_.”

“I’m not ready,” Magnus admits, “But _this_ is more than a distraction.”

“Okay,” Alec says, understanding, “But we have to be quiet.” Through the sliver the door is open he peeks at Jace, still sleeping soundly, and thinks of his mother, Izzy, Luke and Simon in the other rooms of Magnus’s loft.

Alec sheds his sweats and t-shirt and they embrace, slow kisses and touches become their whole world, Magnus reveling in every response he evokes from Alec, each reaction exaggerated as Alec struggles to keep quiet.

Alec expects one of them will get on their knees - it’s the easiest thing to do while standing in a small bathroom. But Magnus has other plans. He wants to use only his hands, his fingers - give them purpose again.

Magnus presses Alec up against the wall once more, then nudges his left leg.

“Put your foot up on the counter.”

“Why?”

Magnus answers by sliding two of his fingers into Alec’s mouth. “Suck.”

Alec is confused for a moment, then realizes Magnus can’t summon what they need. So Alec does as he’s told, lifting his foot to the counter, sucking on Magnus’s fingers, releasing them with wet _pop_ that seems to echo in the silence.

“This okay?” Magnus asks as he positions both fingers at Alec’s entrance.

“Yes,” Alec nods. One is easy - two is a little jarring at first, but he wants it.

Magnus kisses Alec again, preparing to swallow Alec’s moans as he presses his fingers inside and takes Alec’s cock in his other hand.

Alec grabs blindly at Magnus, one hand on his jaw, the other going to stroke him. But he’s mostly just falling apart under and around Magnus’s fingers, teetering ever closer to the edge. He has to bite his lip when Magnus breaks the kiss to mouth down his neck, then over to his ear.

“Come for me Alexander,” Magnus pleads.

Alec doesn’t deny him.

~~~

By the end they’re in a heap on the floor, holding each other, Alec doing his best to clean them up with Magnus’s damp towel from the shower.

They stay like that in silence for a while. The tile is hard and cold, but it’s forgotten in the soft warmth of each others’ bodies.

Until a sharp whine cuts through the air.

Alec’s body tenses, all systems coming back online. He _needs_ to go to Jace. But he doesn’t move.

“You don’t have to choose,” Magnus whispers against Alec's neck, nuzzling into him.

Alec sighs, the statement loaded far beyond this singular moment. “I feel like I _did_. But I never meant to. I never--”

“No, it’s okay, Alec. I made the choice.”

“Magnus--”

“Please, I don’t want to fight.” He sounds scared.

“I brought him into our-- your bed, without asking,” Alec says wildly, realization only hitting him as the words fall from his lips.

Magnus’s voice rises above a whisper then, “We both need you right now and you don’t have to tear yourself in two to--”

“Okay, okay, no fighting,” Alec concedes, for once too tired to press for Magnus to put the blame on him, where it surely belongs.

They dress in seconds, and Alec takes Magnus’s hand, leading him to the bed, where Jace’s sleep has become increasingly fitful.

Alec settles on his back, a few inches away from Jace on his right, Magnus curled tightly around his left side, resting his head on his chest.

For a while Alec rubs the back of his right hand, his knuckles, against Jace’s arm and face, tracing a long path up and down until Jace quiets and squirms closer, unconsciously seeking the warmth of Alec’s body.

And there, lying in the dark, his soul on his right, his heart on his left, Alec resolves to get them back what they’ve each lost. And if that means a journey to Edom, so be it.


End file.
